Re: Block instant messaging with Pix 7?

On Sat, 28 Jan 2006 13:48:17 -0600, Marc Teale wrote:

> I upgraded my Cisco Pix 515 to OS version 7.04 a while ago because Cisco
> has all sorts of marketing up on their site claiming that it can block
> instant messaging.
>
> Well, I've found a lot of marketing material on their site, but I
> haven't been able to find any actual documentation on how to do it.
> Does anyone have experience with this? It would be much appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
> Marc

I recently installed 7.04 and I noticed it has "inspection engines" that
allow for layer 4-7 inspection. So it should come with some facility to
detect and block popular instant messaging protocols via application layer
7 inspection. Check the PIX 7.04 ASDM docs, it should mention something.

You could always just block the ports some popular instant messaging
services run on. Here is a list of a few:

AIM
5190 - 5193

MSN Messenger (Including Voice)
6901, 6891-6900

Yahoo
5050

You can find more on Google.

-- 
Nick DePetrillo
Network Security Engineer
OSHEAN
PGP Key: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=vindex&search=0x121245B5